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Windows Server 2003, on which WHS is based, is far too expensive for a modest home server – a five-user license costs £150, and the price increases with the number of systems served. Installing, configuring and maintaining Linux can be a time consuming hassle though, even if you're already familiar with the OS.
#Windows home server 2011 backup to nas free
Linux is the obvious choice since many distributions are free and its reliability is well-documented. However, even with the aforementioned features and conveniences, it's tempting to use an alternative OS if you're building your own home server. WHS is most commonly found pre-installed on specially designed home servers, such as Asus' Home Server TS Mini, but can also be bought separately (for around £73) and installed on a standard PC. Guess which freelancer's invoice might not get processed immediately. Still, the plug-ins partially make up for the fact that certain features which are included on even the cheapest, most basic NAS devices are missing – notably printer sharing and RAID support. There's a fairly wide selection available, but it's best not to go overboard since they're all added to a scrolling, fixed width toolbar in WHS Connector - managing any more than a few plug-ins quickly becomes unwieldy.
#Windows home server 2011 backup to nas Pc
UPnP media sharing is also supported, so WHS PCs can stream stored music, videos and photos to an UPnP network media player, or a PC running Windows Media Player or Media Center.īy default, standard Windows applications can't be run on WHS, but the OS does support plug-ins for adding extra features. If your router supports UPnP, it will even attempt to use UPnP port forwarding, so you don't even need to open any ports yourself. WHS supports dynamic DNS, so it's easy to configure so your files can be accessed remotely over the internet using a web interface. Versioned backups are supported, but older backups will always be purged to make room for newer ones. Individual backup schedules can't be set, though, so all your computers will be backed up at the same time. You can even schedule backups of chosen files from each of your networked computers via WHS. Click to enlargeĬreating password-protected user accounts and assigning them different access permissions to different shared folders is particularly straightforward compared to some Linux-based NAS devices we've seen. Windows Home Server Connector gathers all the options for your server in one intuitive window. The clearly labelled, tabbed management program, WHS Connector, gathers all of the various configuration options into one central place instead of leaving them scattered among several different control panels as with Server 2003. WHS is a version of Windows Server 2003 that’s designed to be easy to set up and operate for the average person - the setup wizard gets you up and running within 15-20 minutes.
WHS, on the other hand, will run on standard PC hardware based around Intel or AMD x86 processors. Most NAS devices run Linux on hardware based around embedded processors from manufacturers such as Marvell or Freescale, typically based on the ARM design.
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft got in on the action with Windows Home Server (WHS), which it introduced in 2007. Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are essentially small servers designed for use in the home, but generally use modified versions of Linux. What is Windows Home Server?Most households now have multiple computers and huge libraries of media files too it's therefore no longer a daft idea to have a server in your home to store all those files in a centralised place.